Luscious Ladakh

 

People run away, or rather try to run away, from multitudes of putridities and puerilities plaguing their mundane lives. The plains sound like cradle of corruption and the hills, clad in mysterious miasma, beckon with solitude and salvation. They have become the charging ports for the hapless society feeling sapped of enthusiasm for life despite all the material progress taking place around.

Ladakh, with its immutable serenity in the fertile womb of its outer barrenness, offers broad avenues to the ruffled soul to dilate the self and be in a dimension that is accepting, healing, motherly and solacing.

Me and my brother plan an yearly sojourn to take reinvigorating sips in the land of monasteries and mountain passes. One need not be a globetrotter to unwind the suffocated self and qualify as a typical ‘traveler’. Just open up yourself to the places which you can afford to visit. You simply have to block the strains of indiscretion and each place unblocks its wealth of experiences and lessons for your gain. Each place is a kind host; provided we are willing to be courteous guests.

Luscious Ladakh, full of pristine emptiness! So close to the unmanifest! A Zen-like peace echoing through its rarefied terrain. It pulls we brothers during summers when the lofty passes open the door to the outside world. The wintertime desolation melts and streams flow with ripples of hospitality, warmth and inexplicable joy.

A drizzle in Leh is as special as a mystical rainbow! A numinous feast for the eyes. I look and marvel at this heavenward arc of truth and beauty defined by human endurance, faith and rituals. I’m standing in a monastery overlooking Leh from a lofty craggy peak. The scented breeze of spirituality emanates from the ancient wooden balcony of the Namgyal monastery overlooking Leh from the top of this high hill.

Sublime, solitary and unhurried world of peaceful monks at the Hemis monastery about 45 kilometers from Leh. An elemental and monumental urge to discover one’s loftier self in dreamlike isolation. In the museum in the monastery, I marvel at the fossil of Lak Khyi. There is an interesting Buddhist myth about a wingless vulture pup that crawls on ground following its mother’s shadow. It’s considered to be very auspicious. The enduring myth, as sturdy as these barren brown cliffs surrounding the monastery. The specimen looks quite realistic. They don’t allow it to be photographed. But it’s an unforgettable experience to stand silently in front of this fossilized remnant of the mythical bird.

Turtuk, the hidden gem, the earth-toned paradise. The little village carries cerulean charm of deep traditional hospitality, spiritually nestled in the trans-Himalayan hushed, raw, minimalist milieu. Here is the pair of a sparkling son and its muddy mother: a pristine, crystalline glacial stream emptying into muddy rugged Shyok river. The sizzling snowmelt crisscrossing the cliffs like a glittering thread of life in the cold desert. And down the valley, the untamed feminine fury of the Shyok river.

The pristine azure noon sky; the ochre shades of the setting sun on the rugged brown cliffs.

The wild and furious tempest of the spating Shyok river near Turtuk—water’s massive, muddy and ferocious push against mammoth mountains. We walk on a swaying narrow wooden suspension bridge linking the asphalt road to a little farming hamlet on the other side. The planks old, worn out but resilient like the indomitable Ladakhi spirit. The wind buffeting, howling its songs of sovereignty. The waves in the river so big that they nearly kiss the rudimentary planking of the bridge.

One has to forget the habit of taking quick steps and walk with meditative awareness and prayer-laden poise, feeling the pulse of silvery calmness under this roaring, muddy, frightening stream. Each step transporting you to a gentle dimension underneath this hoary, austere face of mother nature. It’s like crossing the torrential stream of life using the bridge of a stable mind (a steady psychosomatic composite self) to reach the other shore.

Diskit-Shyok-Durbuk road is one of the most challenging roads in Ladakh. It traverses the remote barrenness along the angry cuts of the Shyok river in the valleys bearing telltale signs of the river’s flooding and furious capabilities. The muddy and mighty Shyok is unsparing. The gurgling glacial streams emptying their stormy fury into the mother valley swipe away the road at many stretches. The trek is absent at many places across the muddy plains. But as they say, the hardest routes lead to the most beautiful views. Travelling on this challenging road leads to a blissful destination: Pangong lake.

Let’s ignore the worst part and focus on the best one: The BRO’s tireless work in the mountains. There are road stretches in the Shyok valley that can put even Delhi roads to shame. As you ride on bike in these stretches, ancient stillness whispers songs of boundless solitude in your ears.

Pangong, the multicolored liquid gem in the navel of mountains. The liminal lake (transitioning between worldly and the divine) and the surrounding panorama are ethereal, transcendental to the last core of their molecular structure. You feel a monastic timelessness while standing on the sacred lake’s shore. A sun-drenched remoteness taking you in its majestic, wind-carved folds. A stark vastness takes you in its embrace. A touch of nomadic, snow-kissed Himalayan houri sends sizzles of otherworldly desire across mind, body and soul. Words fail to do justice to the beauty of this high-altitude wonder of mother nature.

This landscape is a living temple and Pangong lake is a beautiful Goddess. On the surrounding bare brown ridges a mystical, wind-sculpted monastic hush is layered over the harsh weather elements. I’m glad that people travel thousands of kilometers to have Her darshan. And they turn very childish in having fun on Her banks. Still it’s better to have celebrating children, drinking and carousing on Her banks, playing in Her temple yard. It’s far better than wars and tragic bloodletting.

For hundreds of merrymaking children, all it needs is to be one grown up person to clean the dirt like a caring, capable parent once the children have had their fun. Pangong is a mother, forgiving, allowing the children to have fun and leave behind litter on Her banks. I inhale the untamed, high-altitude contemplative air, get the message from my refreshed conscience and start doing what ought to be done instead of just cribbing.

To me She is a luminous Goddess. And here I perform my rituals. I light a lamp by cleaning about one kilometer of Her holy banks. She seems very happy. As I meditate on Her banks, I know it’s a different dimension, an ancient and infinite one. My rewards are the fresh experiential strains of knowledge as I mediate on Her bank. Yes, I have it: Her blessings in the form of the otherworldly whispering of the infinite; a spirit-cleansing touch of divinity. A few moments of being in the confluence of earth, sky, spirit and silence. And still more blessings by the sacred spirits dwelling in Her waters! She never lets Her children go empty handed.

A man comes strolling with his wife, raises his thumb to say, ‘Good job!’ To me he is even bigger culprit than those who spread the litter. He isn’t an ignorant child. He understands. Still just wants to clean his conscience by giving a good remark and raising a thumb, as if his duty is done just by this inconsequential action. ‘It’s not an act in abstract. It’s meant to inspire others to do the same. I expect you to do the same,’ I say. He is eager to leave the scene without dirtying his hands. His partner is visibly embarrassed.

I’m not bothered. I just move with my load of plastic and discarded cans and walk like a contended, timeworn, unhurried pilgrim on a very-very solitary pilgrimage trail in some remote corner of the world.

To others She is just a lake for having fun. But to me She is a living goddess and so I light my little lamp of faith by cleaning Her banks.

The bike ride from Pangong to Hanle gives you a taste of sepulchral, elemental vastness. Silence and solitude comingled with challenges now and then. The barren slopes almost intimidating you with their rarefied ruggedness. Not to stop you, but to give you lessons necessary to make you a better journeyman. Lofty brown slopes surrounding you like great ancestors, brooding with grand conjectures on their wrinkled faces. The bike labors. But the rider is kissed by sacred stillness emanating from each stone and crag in this enduring, beautiful barrenness. You go listening to stoic lessons of raw resilience to surpass all odds.

You come across some unique sun-bleached, wind-washed, pilgrimage-worthy landscapes, almost extraterrestrial in nature, enshrouded in a silent soliloquy. The wind carrying a mysterious and mystical whisper. Just the purring of your bike cutting a little line across the sandy plains seeped in otherworldly solitude. You can’t just help but inhale big draughts of nonbeing on this trans-Himalayan altar, the shrine of a goddess raw, silent and aloof but always there to bless you, guiding you with her all-powerful presence. 

Rezang La hill and memorial on the dusty plains. Major Shaitan Singh and his company of 120 soldiers attained martyrdom on a hill overlooking the memorial site. Carrying sky-hungry Himalayan spirit and bravery, they fought till the last bullet, killing 1300 Chinese soldiers in this most fierce battle of the 1962 Indo-China war. A heroic tale written in the majestic monochromes of motherland and duty. If not for their supreme sacrifice, we would have lost the strategic Chushul sector. People like you and me have the freedom to travel to this very remote part of Ladakh, which appears like Central Asian Pamir plateau, only due to the bravery of these soldiers.

Dizzying hairpin loops from Hanle to the world’s highest motorable pass, Umling La. They take you in their dizzying eddies and leave you uncluttered of the puzzles and anxieties you carry in your head. You just bow down, all reverent to the rarity of these moments on the roof of the world.

As you move upward, it becomes a journey inward. The peaks around don’t dominate, they instruct you, guide you. You soak silence once the initial inhibitions are shed and then you feel that silence isn’t absence of noise, it’s a pure and refined presence, your own undisturbed self.

The most trickily poised slopes and high peaks, almost standing equal to the sky, aren’t here to invite you for admiration. They just, like kids, need your attention for your own evolution. As you go spiraling across loops after loops in the highest motorable road in the world, you get the secret: Ladakh is a shy country girl. She won’t reveal all her charms instantly; she helps you master the art of patience by withholding her charms, leaving you in her pursuit across this fabulous vastness.

The Indus river moves somewhere hurried, somewhere loud, somewhere with gentility and patience. Cutting like ribbon of truth in the thin air. In the valleys, villages cling to barren slopes like firm belief against aggression and pressure.  

Somewhere, an unknown and unsung memorial of a martyred soldier far away in the cold desert. But mother existence seems to pay homage through little alpine flowers around it. A few moments of paying homage to this defender of the motherland. A tear. A bouquet from the soul.

Little alpine flowers in the meadows around a small village on the shore of a stormy water body, Lake Tso Moriri. Bright, gentle, slow mornings in the Ladakhi village. The soul-satiating hospitality, the warmth of wrinkled smiles on old faces, the calmness of lamas, the gentlest pace of life. The day almost a lovely picture.

Beautiful messages of wisdom and caution by the BRO and HIMANK, the two military institutions that can put to shame any corporate office in India in terms of efficiency, commitment and dedication to mission irrespective of the toughest odds stalling the progress. As you move on your path, it’s as good as reading the book of life itself. We move slowly and read the signboards by the roadside.

 

It’s not a rally or race,

Enjoy Ladakh with leisure and grace!

 

Heaven is a myth,

Ladakh is real!

 

Higher the hill,

stronger the will!

 

Slow is the speed that lets you see the mountains.

 

High roads demand low ego.

 

Nature ahead—drive as a guest, not an intruder.

 

Mountains forgive slowly; drive wisely.

 

Silence outside begins with caution inside.

 

One wrong turn can disturb a thousand years of calm.

 

The road is narrow, but your awareness must be wide.

 

Respect the height—life breathes thinner here.

 

Horns wake stones, not mountains.

 

Drive slow—beauty has no exit ramp.

 

Speed thrills briefly; Ladakh humbles forever.

 

These hills remember every careless move.

 

The lake reflects calm—match it.

 

Here, patience is better fuel than petrol.

 

You are crossing a landscape older than fear.

 

Fast driving shortens journeys—sometimes permanently.

 

In the land of monasteries, let restraint lead.

 

Every curve is a question; answer gently.

 

Altitude tests machines, wisdom tests drivers.

 

Arrive alive—Ladakh will wait.

 

Ladakh silent like a prayer that has been held for too long; vast like an idea which refutes bondage; still like a monk’s gaze at the rising sun. The mountains rise like unanswerable questions against the sky. Prayer flags fluttering, inspiring the habitual clingers to ‘let go’ of the unnecessary stuff of life.

At night cold settles firmly but with a clarifying wink. During the day, the sunlight scatters forgiveness, arming even the hearts of big boulders with acceptance and receptivity. Then the night arrives again, coming like a velvet curtain to take everyone in its deep and absolute folds.

The path curves with the logic and reasoning of survival; the journey is not always straight, but involves essential bending and needful curves.

The polished mirror of lakes where the sky muses over its own existence. The snow is nothing but silence resting and made visible for the benefit of humans. Horizons stretched around like breath held by divinity in wonderment. Life prevailing like stubborn mantra, repeated over and over in chanting and prayers in monasteries. Rocks nothing but thoughts abandoned and lying useless, the stray thoughts left to their own little self. The desert opening its heart by stripping itself of all the secrets to reveal truth, unadorned and naked.

The monasteries sitting on ridges, seeming like punctuation marks in eternity. Silence the daily prayer. Mountains ancient monks. The valleys like bowls receiving eternal truths from the sky. The unguarded infinity showering from the sky. The lakes mystical mirrors to reflect on your troubled thoughts to wash them away. And high-altitude villages fragile yet firm pauses in time.

Memories float on the wind, not noise.

It’s a divine paring down of the worldly events: an exotic stripping from ornamentation of forests, plants, birds and animals. A slumberous vortex on the threshold of earth and sky. Its eloquent barrenness speaking more effectively than the fertile valleys and greenery far down on the lower altitudes.

Well, that’s Ladakh for you my dear readers.